


feel that ice is slowly melting

by cynical_optimist



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Other, Pre-relationship softness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 20:56:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17753378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical_optimist/pseuds/cynical_optimist
Summary: Blue J hates the visions Benjamin gets, sometimes. They can be really cool, especially when they show him where to find things, or act as glimpses of the university as it had been—but visions like that don’t end with Benjamin like this. It’s bad enough that they both get nightmares, but almost everyone at the university gets nightmares. It’s just Benjamin who gets these visions, and Benjamin, more than anyone, who deserves a good night’s rest.-Nightmares and hugs in the cold early mornings of The Last University.





	feel that ice is slowly melting

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing this on a plane and the man next to me started asking me questions about what I was working on. Has this scared me off ever writing fic on planes again? We'll see.
> 
> I wrote this bc I love Benjamin and Blue J and think they deserve a little bit of peace by this point. Set sometime vaguely before episode six. All mistakes are my own - no one who betas for me has listened to Spring haha. Title from "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Blue J wakes to a sharp rap on their window, sometime hazy between night and morning, and a wide-eyed, familiar face peering through the glass. They squint back at Benjamin, sitting up in bed.

“Hey,” Benjamin hisses. “Blue J.”

“What?” Blue J whispers, and Benjamin waves, then points at some point behind himself.

They push their blankets off, jumping out of bed and padding over to push open the window.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Benjamin says, and now that they’re face to face, Blue J can see the worn, fragile look on his face. “Come sit with me?”

They nod. It’s not the first time this has happened—and they’ve done the same more than a few times before. Nightmares and sleepless nights are far too familiar to them both, and they’re easier to face together than apart.

“Give me a minute to change,” they say, and Benjamin smiles with just the corner of his mouth—a tired, private thing—before stepping away from the window. Blue J hurries to change into something a little warmer; the winter is over at this point, but nights are still too cool to be wandering around the university in sleep clothes. Fastening their cloak, they slip out the window and join Benjamin outside.

Benjamin, apparently, had not had the forethought to grab something warmer before heading over; instead, he’s concentrating on a soft light in his palms, giving off a dim warmth that strengthens the closer Blue J gets. Sometimes they wonder how someone so smart forgets so often to be sensible. They can’t even count the number of times he’s been too wrapped up in spellbooks to remember his cloak, or his dinner, or any number of practical things that Blue J is left to remind him of.

Instead of teasing him, as they might another time—and might still, later—they take him under their arm, making sure their cloak is fitted snugly around his shoulders, too. He leans into the touch, taking a deep breath, and this close Blue J can feel how it shakes.

Together, they make their way through the dark and quiet university to the underground garden. There are a few guards out patrolling, but they know how to evade them—or at least the guards are familiar enough with them to let them by without incident. If they’re caught, their parents will find out, but Rosanna rarely does more than lecture Benjamin, and Blue J’s dad—well, he says it’s all part of growing up.

In the garden and past the patrols, they climb up the vine and into the entrance of the little clubroom. There’s some blankets in the corner, and Benjamin immediately goes to them, wrapping one around his shoulders and casting another warmth spell at the centre of the room. Blue J slips the cover back into place and joins him, settling onto a pillow they’d dragged in here sometime in the last few years. After a moment, Benjamin leans into their side again, and they smile, holding him close. It’s not the first night they’ve spent like this, and it won’t be the last; at this point, they have a routine. It’s not an easy one, but it is familiar, and they have each other through it.

“You want to talk about it?” Blue J asks, arms wrapped securely around Benjamin. “Vision or nightmare?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he answers, after a moment. “Could be either. Maybe both. Just—sadness, and fighting, and things burning. Dad was there.”

They tighten their hold on him. “Yeah?” Throndir’s said the sword Benjamin’s dad and his friends are trapped in is almost fixed, but almost can be a long time, and they’ve been working on it for years.

“It might’ve just been a nightmare,” Benjamin sighs, resting his head on Blue J’s shoulder. It was mostly flashes anyway. Impressions. I just…. I couldn’t sleep, after.”

Blue J hates the visions Benjamin gets, sometimes. They can be really cool, especially when they show him where to find things, or act as glimpses of the university as it had been—but visions like that don’t end with Benjamin like this. It’s bad enough that they both get nightmares, but almost everyone at the university gets nightmares. It’s just Benjamin who gets these visions, and Benjamin, more than anyone, who deserves a good night’s rest.

“Sorry,” Blue J says, because they don’t know how to say anything else. “I hate this.”

Benjamin takes another shaky breath. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Me too.”

For a few moments, they sit in silence, curled into each other, Benjamin’s warming charm the only source of light. Blue J finds themselves drifting off again, warm and at peace with their best friend in their arms. Moments like these, despite their circumstances, are Blue J’s favourites. Learning from Throndir in the forests, bow in hand, is one type of calm; this is another, softer but just as easy. Benjamin is breathing evenly now, eyes open and nose scrunched in the way that tells Blue J he’s going over a spell in his head. When Blue J looks at him, a piece of their heart aches, but it’s not a bad feeling. They smile at him, and lean their head back as they close their eyes.

“Hey,” Benjamin murmurs after a while. Blue J wasn’t quite asleep, and the quiet word rouses them the rest of the way. “Thanks.”

They shrug. They don’t tell him that if they could, they would take the visions and nightmares and all else and banish them beyond the star walls. They don’t tell him that they would stay in here with him for as long as he wanted, if he asked; but then, maybe he knows that. Maybe he’d do the same. Maybe they don’t have to say anything at all. 

Far above the both of them, the sun is starting to rise— the people of the university are stirring and going about their days, as they have done for years, and soon Benjamin and Blue J will need to join them. They have chores, still, and Blue J is meant to be meeting up with Throndir later. There are things to do, as there always are, even when the world is far too quickly dying around them.

But right now: Benjamin rests his head on their shoulder again, and the weight is careful and familiar.

“Of course,” Blue J says, finally, and the words come out a little rough. “Of course.”

But right now: a little sunlight has peeked through a hole in the top of their hideout, and it is casting itself, dappled, onto Benjamin’s face, and Blue J’s heart aches and thumps in their chest.

But right now: the two of them rest, peaceful, in their little refuge away from nightmares, and the sunlight flickers down toward them, and all is calm.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure that a very good portion of my published work is literally just people cuddling. I have a brand and that brand is comfort and softness.
> 
> Come chat to me! I'm on twitter @spiderangst and tumblr @boxesfullofthoughts.


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